According to different specialists in the field of learning psychology, there is a general consensus on the learning process through which we go through and it is based on the following aspects:
- Interest: in order to learn it is necessary we have a psychological and emotional predisposition oriented towards the task in question. Our interest is manifested through attention that allows focusing on the object of learning, generating the intrinsic motivation of pleasure, rather than an extrinsic one related to the notion of utility. Learning how to ski is not considered a psychologically neutral activity. Each skier, according to his experiences of success or failure, will be able to undertake, positively or negatively, a new learning situation.
- Understanding: it is to glimpse the meanings of learning because in order to learn it is necessary to give a sense to what is being learned, a meaning of what is being attended to. It is necessary to understand the explanation in order to be able to execute the movement or action explained. If there is no understanding, we do not make sense of what we hear. Understanding is essential for the creation of the image of the movement that will be executed. Understanding is to identify the objective to be achieved, i.e., the direction of our movements.
- Repetition: repeating movements’ executions allows to consolidate our motor memory. To repeat does not mean to copy the previous execution but to do it again feeling all the phases in order to understand and memorize it better. To repeat is to reinforce the motor experience which, in turn, reinforces the understanding of the movements and actions performed. Newly learned skills are fragile and therefore need to be repeated.
Repetition and comprehension allow the adaptation of the acquired skill to new situations. The acquisition of a new motor skill allows the generation of our procedural memory, which is initially fragile and susceptible to interference. Thanks to repetition, this memory is consolidated and becomes more resistant to influences, which makes it possible to increase the motor performance observed in the speed and precision of the executions, and in a decrease in the variations of these executions.
Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus suggest that there are five stages in a learning process:
- The beginner stage would be the first. At this stage we admit that we are unable to undertake the activity recognizing our own incompetence, and therefore assume the responsibility of hiring an instructor, giving him or her our confidence and permission to teach us.
- In the second stage, we become advanced beginners as participating in real skiing situations outside the beginner’s area. We are aware that we could get into trouble if venturing into places without the instructor who serves as a safeguard.
- In the third stage, we reach the competent level, i.e., achieve enough independence to face normal environmental situations on our own (we are not yet able to manage emergency situations) but always under a technical frame of reference that we will apply mechanically.
- The fourth stage makes us skilled because we tend to coordinate our thoughts in an analytical way together with our semi-automatic responses and with the awakening of intuition (anticipation) of unforeseen situations. At this stage the instructor adopts a guiding role, moving away from permanent control to act as an observer and external advisor to us as we become independent.
- The learning journey continues with the expert stage. We have competence over normal and unforeseen situations, know what and how to do based on our experiences. We act almost without thinking according to our intuition about the best thing to do in a given situation (unconscious competence). This stage is based on the interaction between the strategies for solving situations and the experience generated by the knowledge of the environment. Here we should avoid falling into ‘expert incompetence‘, i.e., reach such a level of competence that become ignorant of the conditions of the environment. As the modifications of the environment require appropriate adaptations in time and space, especially in situations of permanent changes, we, as expert skiers, may fall into risk by not modifying our skiing, becoming inefficient by not being aware of our technical limits.
- There is a final stage called mastery in which a level of competence is reached that establishes new technical standards. Several champions reached such a level of mastery transforming the history of skiing. The particularity of master skiers is that, compared to experts, they retain a ‘beginner’s mind‘, i.e., the open-mindedness necessary to be receptive to new learning beyond the unconscious competence observed in experts.
